『微』言大義，『微服』出巡啦！

索樂魔纏身，智慧行動服務當道，在前端PC出貨衰退之際，後端伺服器需求仍穩建成長。在海量數據與節能趨勢下，新型態的microserver浮現，ARM跟X86兩造再度死磕。

For PCs, we believe ARM will eventually (perhaps around four years) capture approximately 10% of PC units, primarily at the low end, as Microsoft further improves its operating system (OS) for ARM. But this may only account for roughly 30 million units at a moderate ASP and, therefore, may hold only a few percentage points of total revenue.

For servers, we expect the overall market for microservers (ARM and x86) to ramp from almost nothing today to close to 20% of the overall server market in 2018, accounting for $2.3 billion in silicon revenue annually. While x86 will capture the majority of microservers near term, we project ARM will gain momentum further out to capture more than 50% of the microserver market (10% of total server market) by 2018.
- Christopher Rolland with FBR

FBR估算，自2014起五年內，微伺服器將以82%複合成長率達到年出貨量250萬台，整體伺服器占比19%；其中ARM：X86為57：43！



在ARM微伺服器中扮演關鍵角色的即是ARMv8架構與TSMC的20nm製程。



各家微伺服器SoC盡出，不僅Intel為此重塑Atom，AMD亦汲汲於『西雅圖』而未眠。

Codenamed “Seattle,” AMD’s first ARM-based Opteron processor will use the ARMv8 architecture, offering low-power processing in the fast growing dense server space. “Seattle” processors will have either four or eight cores, packing server-grade features such as support for up to 128 GB of ECC memory, and integrated 10Gb/sec of Ethernet connectivity with AMD’s revolutionary Freedom™ fabric, designed to cater for dense compute systems. We are hard at work on making sure the software ecosystem will support our cutting edge hardware. Work on software enablement has been happening throughout the stack - from the UEFI, to the operating system and onto application frameworks and developer tools such as compilers and debuggers. This ensures that the software will be ready for ARM-based servers. All of this work on both hardware and software should shed some light on just how big ARM processors will be in the data center.
- Lawrence Latif, a blogger and technical communications representative at AMD

已躋身OpenPOWER Consortium的Google也因一則
“digital design engineer” with qualifications in ASICs, or application-specific integrated circuits, a commonly-used chip的徵才啟事，引發華爾街對Google進軍ARM處理器的臆測。鑒於Google身處全球數據中心龍頭地位，其對微伺服器商機的影響，著實動見觀瞻。


奧克拉荷馬州Google數據中心內數以百計的風扇抽取伺服器廢熱至冷卻系統。


彰濱工業區Google亞洲數據中心所使用的伺服器主板。


彰濱工業區Google亞洲數據中心的冷卻系統管線及水槽。



微伺服器市場正萌芽，數年前即以32位元ARMv7架構切入server SoC設計的Calxeda，卻已不支倒地，日前宣布停止營運、遣散員工，僅對現有客戶作售後服務。應該是來不及看ARMv8長大了。